1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a starter for vehicles having a solenoid for pushing out a pinion gear to a ring gear side, and a switch for turning on and off an energization current of a motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been an increase of vehicles equipped with an automatic engine stop/re-starting device (hereafter called an idle stop system) for the purpose of reducing carbon dioxide and improving fuel consumption.
The idle stop system will cut fuel supply to the engine for stopping the engine automatically when predetermined condition is satisfied when the vehicle is stopped (idling state) or during reducing the engine speed.
Then, when starting operations (for example, releasing brakes, shifting to a drive range, etc.) are performed by the user and starting conditions are satisfied, the system operates a starter automatically and re-starts the engine.
The idle stop system has many opportunities to stop the engine automatically on a street, such as when stopping at a crossing and stopping in a traffic jam.
Therefore, when starting conditions are satisfied, it is required that engine should be reliably re-started as promptly as possible.
Then, the necessity of separating the starter functions of pushing out the pinion gear and a function of turning on and off the energization current of the motor arises as.
As a conventional technology in which this is realizable, there is a starter disclosed in the Japanese Utility Model Application Second Publication No. 56-42437.
This starter has a solenoid that generates the driving force (attractive force of an electromagnet) for pushing out a pinion gear to a ring gear side via a shift lever and a switch that turns on and off an energization current of a motor, and both the solenoid and the switch are constituted separately.
By the way, although the loading position of the starter in an engine compartment is usually a place close to and beside the engine, however, functional components with a higher priority for the engine performance, such as an intake manifold, are arranged around the engine in many cases.
For this reason, the outer diameter size of the starter used only for starting the engine is often restricted. Therefore, in order to secure the market competitiveness of the product itself, improving an ease of arrangement of the starter by miniaturization is important.
However, the starter disclosed in above-mentioned prior art document has the solenoid for pushing out the pinion and the switch for energizing the motor arranged in parallel.
That is, the solenoid for pushing out the pinion and the switch for energizing the motor are arranged in a position that is different from the circumferential direction of the motor.
With the above-mentioned composition, the radial size of the motor and starter combination increases both radial axes.
Therefore, it is difficult to avoid interference with the functional components arranged around the engine, and it is difficult to arrange the components efficiently.
Further, since the solenoid for pushing out the pinion and the switch for energizing the motor shown in above-mentioned prior art document are constituted completely separately, parts cannot be shared commonly among both.
For this reason, a problem arises that the number of parts increases as compared with the conventional electromagnetic switch for starters.
In addition, when the solenoid for pushing out the pinion and the switch for energizing the motor are assembled, the process of crimping ends of a solenoid yoke and a switch yoke is required.
In this case, since it is necessary to cut an inner circumference of the yoke thin in order to provide a crimping portion at the end of the yoke, a number of processes increases and workability is not efficient, either.